Freshman Grace Mills is one of six women in the Elon University Club Esports. Now, she will also be the first woman on its executive board — serving as event coordinator.
Esports, electronic sports, is competitive video gaming with over 474 million viewers worldwide as of 2021 with a $1.08 billion market revenue, according to Statista. Elon’s Club Esports has over 450 members who play League of Legends, Overwatch, Rainbow Six: Siege, Super Smash Brothers and more. They meet in the esports lounge in Global Commons.
The esports realm is widely male dominated, with women making up 30% of viewers and 35% of gamers according to MSNBC. At Elon, only 6 of the 450 members are female.
Despite the club being male dominated, Mills said she doesn’t let the men walk over her, especially when it comes to making sure that men are not degrading women in the club.
“I'm the type of person who if you say something misogynistic, even if you're playing a game and I'm in the vicinity, I will call you out on it,” Mills said. “Because I frankly don't care and that needs to be something that more people are getting called out on.”
As a child, Mills expressed her interest in gaming through Wii and later progressed to Xbox and PC gaming at Elon. She plays on Overwatch, Siege and Valorant for Club Esports.
Freshman Alex Gaines said that while the men at Elon are very welcoming of female players, other people on the Internet are not.
“When it comes to actually playing video games with random people in the world, you do hear pretty mean things quite often, and a lot of sexist commentary,” Gaines said.
Junior Club Esports President John Spitznagel credits the increase in women participating to Elon’s new esports gaming facilities located in Global Commons.
“They came in and they saw the space and they're like, ‘Oh, I really want to join the team,’” Spitznagel said. “So having a space on campus and just a central location really has started to bring more women into the club and just enter the world of esports.”
Spitznagel said that Twitch — a live-streaming platform that is used primarily for video game streaming and esports competitions — has helped promote and normalize women in esports. Out of the 7.57 million active streamers on Twitch, 35% are female, compared to the 18.5% in 2017.
“I think with Twitch and live streaming, female influencers are growing,” Spitznagel said. “I definitely think it's going to bring more and more women into the gaming scene, specifically esports, probably in the next couple years to come.”
Mills and Gaines have both watched female Twitch streamer Pokimane — a gamer with 9 million followers who has faced sexism online as a woman in esports.
“She streamed one time without makeup and people bring up that image, like just a screencap of that. And they're like, ‘This is what you look like, don't forget,’” Mills said. “There's no need for that. And she is highly, highly successful. And so I just have to be like, ‘She can do this, I can do it too.’”
As a woman in the club, Mills said she holds herself to a very high standard and still has a lot to prove.
“I don’t want to say I have a chip on my shoulder because that is such an old term, but I have a lot to prove, like most of us do, and I work my ass off for it,” Mills said.